advertising tools - Elliot's portfolio

Portfolio

Expedia Group
Providing hotel parters - from the Hyatts to vacation rentals - a path to success
A new, more elastic advertising tool for our partners, one that would cater to both small, independent properties and large hotel chains. Our goal was to design to, communicate with, and support these diverse businesses in one product.
The main challenge here was to bridge the audience gap between all hotels, all the time and relevancy, creating a product that was broadly applicable but felt personally catered to a specific situation.
The problem

Expedia Group offered hotel partners two separate advertising products — a cost-per-click (CPC) tool and a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) tool — each with its own flow, language, and audience.
Some used both but didn't understand the difference between them. Very few understood when or why to choose one over the other.
You're on your own
Expedia's two advertising tools, TravelAds and Accelerator, existed in two separate platforms. Many partners only used one, unaware the other existed. Some could only tell both were Expedia if they squinted.
Adding to that complexity, both products suffered from a lack of clear guidance when it came to creating, monitoring, and evaluating either product. Everything was manual.
This is what the TravelAds creation page looked like before the redesign.
And this is what the Accelerator reporting experience looked like.
Get help (when you can find it)
Often, a new partner who was new to our advertising tools needed guidance from their marketing manager to set it up. And once it was created, they needed further support to know how it was performing.
Our goal was to create an experience that was like having a "virtual marketing manager." This meant being transparent about the function of the tools, how to set one up, the cost to the partner, and the impact of their campaigns.
We sought to maximize self servicing so our partners felt empowered and our marketing managers could focus more on strategy rather than technical support.
Two different audiences
From Accelerator users:
TravelAds quotes
"I would love to know the time of day that bookings are coming in. That would explode my ability to strategize my spending."
"I need to see when the budget is refreshing. Without that I have no confidence in managing my budget."
The Accelerator users are typically independent property owners with few or no employees. They are looking for a leg up in their market without a dedicated marketing budget.
"The reason why I go into TravelAds portal once a week is to show the hotel team our current return on ad spend for the month as well as whether we're competitive compared to the market leaders."
TravelAds users are more sophisticated with complex needs. They are concerned with market trends, the minutae of their ad campaigns, and using the dashboard to strategize with their teams.
The goal

To design a single, unified advertising tool that merged both models into one coherent product with extreme empathy and understanding of two very different audiences. It should act as a guide for partners through the setup process, providing personalised recommendations and performance metrics that were both motivating and actionable.
Making ad tech feel approachable
Most hotel partners are not marketers, but others have entire marketing teams or agencies at their disposal. We had to design for both.
The product needed to give partners enough control to feel confident, while surfacing Expedia's data and recommendations to reduce the decision burden.
This is where the competitive analysis came in handy. We liked how personalized Meta ads felt, but might be too basic for our more complex partners. Booking.com and Google Ads felt too transactional and sophisticated for our independent property owners. We had to thread that needle.
IMAGE OF COMPOSITE SCREENSHOTS FROM ALL 3.
Making ad tech feel rewarding
Our users told us that they either felt like they were wasting their money or that they didn't have enough data to decide if they wanted to continue advertising with Expedia.
I wanted to make sure that our advertising partners got the full picture of their performance.
Most of this trust took place in the creation process. Be a guiding hand during that, and the rest should follow. If the creation flow gets partners to sign up, then the playback gets them to stay and establishes their trust.

Expedia Group

Providing hotel parters - from the Hyatts to vacation rentals - a path to success

A new, more elastic advertising tool for our partners, one that would cater to both small, independent properties and large hotel chains. Our goal was to design to, communicate with, and support these diverse businesses in one product.

The main challenge here was to bridge the audience gap between all hotels, all the time and relevancy, creating a product that was broadly applicable but felt personally catered to a specific situation.

The problem

Expedia Group offered hotel partners two separate advertising products — a cost-per-click (CPC) tool and a cost-per-acquisition (CPA) tool — each with its own flow, language, and audience.

Some used both but didn't understand the difference between them. Very few understood when or why to choose one over the other.

You're on your own

Get help (when you can find it)

Two different audiences

TravelAds quotes

The Accelerator users are typically independent property owners with few or no employees. They are looking for a leg up in their market without a dedicated marketing budget.

"The reason why I go into TravelAds portal once a week is to show the hotel team our current return on ad spend for the month as well as whether we're competitive compared to the market leaders."

The goal

Making ad tech feel approachable

Making ad tech feel rewarding

Most of this trust took place in the creation process. Be a guiding hand during that, and the rest should follow. If the creation flow gets partners to sign up, then the playback gets them to stay and establishes their trust.